Child Poverty Bill

I rise to speak to amendment 27, which deals with consulting families. On page 5, the Bill states:""In preparing a UK strategy, the Secretary of State…must consult…local authorities…Scottish Ministers…such children, or organisations working with or representing children, as the Secretary of State thinks fit…and such other persons."" Is it not odd not to mention families or the context in which children live? I would not make this allegation against the Government, but typically it is totalitarian states that try to bypass the context of the family and the parents to speak directly to children. The measure is rather odd. The Minister has tried to say that if we include families, suddenly the Secretary of State would be obliged to consult the whole of the general public, but that is obviously nonsense. The amendment would simply provide that""Secretary of State…must consult…such children"," families""and organisations working with…children, as the Secretary of State thinks fit"." We have heard from the Minister, and we will not necessarily hear from her again, unless I have misunderstood the process, but it is a pity she dismissed the proposal. If the Secretary of State does not talk to children in the context of the family, she will not be properly talking to the child. The best advocate of the child is very often the parent. It is not that we do not want to hear directly from children, but if we do not understand the position of the parent as the chief advocate as the child, we misunderstand the essence of the important relationship between the state and children in the context of their family.